By Gintautas Dumcius | MassterList | November 25, 2025
Most Massachusetts voters probably haven’t given much thought to the proposals that could land on their ballots in 2026. But potential ballot questions were top of mind for Beacon Hill leaders when they met for a check-in on Monday.
“Forty-four of them,” House Speaker Ron Mariano told reporters after the nearly 90-minute meeting.
The Quincy Democrat acknowledged that it’s “too soon to see which ones of these are real,” since they faced a signature-gathering deadline last week, and it’s still unclear how many cleared the hurdle of gathering more than 74,000 John Hancocks. Ten groups claimed to have enough signatures to advance.
Some advocacy groups also submitted multiple versions in order to improve their chances of passing legal muster. But “the sheer number of them bothers me,” Mariano said.
Mariano reprised his past distaste for the “special interest groups” that pay for signature-gathering and “design questions that support their topics or their personal interests.” The topics include rent control, placing the Legislature and governor under the public records law, easing zoning for starter homes, all-party primaries, and an income tax cut.
Senate President Karen Spilka said she shared Mariano’s concerns about special interest involvement in ballot questions. “I believe that special interests have driven a lot of the ballot questions. Sometimes they are presented as grassroots, but when you look behind the curtain and see who is paying for the signatures, it is specific groups. And I think that just needs to be more transparent, so people can see behind the curtain,” she said after her closed-door meeting with Mariano and Gov. Maura Healey.
But one person’s special interest group can be another person’s advocacy organization. It’s a question of perspective. Rent control supporters, who touted the collection of more than 124,000 signatures last week, include unions and left-wing organizations who said it was a grassroots effort and not the result of “hundreds of thousands of dollars to professional signature gathering firms.”
Opponents include real estate groups like NAIOP and the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. “It’s not going to spur any construction or any investment in new housing,” Mariano said, echoing their arguments. Additionally, a spokesman for anti-rent control groups called the proposed 2026 question “more aggressive and restrictive than anything that has been considered here before.”
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